Just Peachy

by Jean Ure

  On our very first day, Mrs Bradbeer, our class teacher, said she wanted us all to introduce ourselves.

  “Most of you have come up from the junior school together, but some of you are new, so I’d like everybody to say a few words about themselves, and about their family, just to break the ice. All right?”

  No! I cringed, trying to hide behind the person in front. This was like my worst nightmare come true.

  Mrs Bradbeer obviously saw the panic on my face. She said, “Try not to look so worried, Peaches!”

  Peaches? Heads snapped round. The whole class stared. I felt like digging a hole and burying myself. Trust Mum! Peaches had been her choice. She couldn’t just pick something ordinary and unremarkable like Amy or Emma. Oh, no! She had to go for something that would make everyone turn and stare.

  Mrs Bradbeer smiled reassuringly. “You don’t have to say more than you feel comfortable with. Just a few words will do. Zoe, why don’t you get us started?”

  Zoe was one of the ones that had come up from Juniors. Full of self-importance, she pushed back her chair and bounced to her feet. You could tell she was someone that just loved the sound of her own voice. In loud, ringing tones she announced that she was Zoe Kingman and that her big ambition was to be successful and make a lot of money. She said she had a dad that was an architect and a mum that was “in the City”.

  “Like she’s really high up in one of the big banks, only I’d better not say which one cos of people getting jealous and thinking she’s probably making too much money, which Mum says is just the politics of envy. I personally think that if you work hard you deserve to make lots of money; I don’t see anything wrong in it. At any rate,” said Zoe, “that is what I am going to do.”

  She sat back down with a self-satisfied flump. I noticed that the girl next to me was pulling a face. I felt a bit like pulling one myself but I wasn’t quite brave enough. Several people were nodding, and one girl even started to clap.

  Mrs Bradbeer said, “Thank you, Zoe. That’s got the ball rolling. Lola? You next?”

  One by one, everybody got up and told us about themselves. They all seemed to have mums and dads that were doctors, or solicitors, or bank managers. I waited for someone to say her dad was a butcher, or her mum was a cleaning lady, but it didn’t happen. I sat glumly, hunched at my desk, wishing I was at Winterbourne instead of having to sit here listening as people went gabbing on about themselves and their hugely important parents. I didn’t think anyone at Winterbourne would really care what other people’s mums and dads did. I certainly wasn’t going to tell them anything about mine!

  Mrs Bradbeer was going round the class at random. She seemed to be leaving me till last. Maybe, with any luck, the bell would ring and I wouldn’t have to do it.

  “Millie?” said Mrs Bradbeer. “Shall we hear from you?”

  The girl next to me sprang up.

  “Millie O’Dowd,” she said. “One mum, one dad, three annoying little sisters. My mum’s called Sinead, my dad’s called Kevin, and my sisters are the Diddy People. Well, that’s what I call them. Dunno what else to say, really. Oh, except my mum’s a school dinner lady and my dad’s on the buses, only I’d better not say which one cos of people getting jealous and thinking bus drivers are greedy when they want more money.”

  Someone gave a little titter. Mrs Bradbeer put a warning finger to her lips.

  “That’s about it really,” said Millie. “I haven’t yet decided what my big ambition is, but hopefully I’ll end up a millionaire.”

  This time lots of people tittered. Mrs Bradbeer said, “Thank you very much, Millie. Short and sweet and very pointed.”

  Millie grinned at me again as she sat down. It was an impish sort of grin, like, ‘I enjoyed that!’ An uncertain silence had settled over the room. I could almost see people wrestling with the idea that someone should have a mum that was a dinner lady and a dad that was on the buses. I felt suddenly bold, and gave Millie a big grin in return. She mouthed at me: “You in a minute!”

  I was still praying that the bell would ring and let me off, but no such luck.

  “Peaches?” said Mrs Bradbeer with a kindly smile.

  I dragged myself to my feet.

  “Peaches McBride,” I said. Well, I mumbled it actually, hoping that maybe people wouldn’t hear. Stupid, really. They were obviously going to find out what my surname was as soon as the register was taken, though maybe if it was just read out along with a whole load of other names, no one would notice. No one would put two and two together and go, “Hey! That’s the name of that radio person’s daughter.” Cos Dad is quite well known, and just last year they’d done a thing about him in one of the newspapers. An article, with photographs. I’d done my best to hide behind Coop, but you could still see that I had blonde hair.

  Fortunately it didn’t seem likely that anyone would have read the article, because after all, why should they? Probably none of them ever listened to the radio. It might be like some kind of god in my house, but I bet to most people it is ancient technology. And even if they did listen, they wouldn’t be listening to Dad. He is not at all cool.

  Zoe, on the far side of the room, called across to me. “Speak louder!”

  “Cheek,” muttered Millie.

  Mrs Bradbeer nodded at me encouragingly. “Just a little bit more volume?”

  For a moment I had wild thoughts of claiming to be an orphan, but that was a bit too mad even for me, so instead I gabbled really fast.

  “I live with my mum and dad plus two brothers and two sisters with me being in the middle. We used to have some stick insects but they died and we never got any more. I have only one big ambition and that is to concentrate on just being me.” And then I said, “Thank you,” and sat down.

  “Thank you,” said Mrs Bradbeer.

  I could feel my cheeks pulsating. Zoe sniggered, and so did one or two others. I don’t think they’d have done it if she hadn’t. It was like they all followed her.

  “That was OK,” whispered Millie.

  I smiled weakly. I didn’t think it was OK. I thought it was just stupid. What had I gone and said thank you for? What was that all about?

  There was only one person left, a girl called Janine who looked like a garden gnome. She was tiny and stubby with a completely round face like an apple and little black buttons for eyes. She bounced up as if she were on springs. She said, “I’m Mouse,” and everybody laughed. Well, everybody that had been at Juniors. Mouse was obviously popular. I wondered if I would ever be, but I thought probably not. You can’t really be popular if you are anonymous.

  As Mouse finished telling us about herself – one brother, two cats, and her dad was a dentist – the bell rang, which meant we had to move on to our next lesson. I took out my timetable. Science, with Miss Jackman. As we left the classroom, Millie said, “Can I ask you something?”

  I said, “Of course,” and at once became all tensed up, waiting for her to say, “Your dad isn’t that man on the radio, is he?”

  “I don’t mean to be rude,” said Millie, “but who are you when you’re not being you?”

  I was relieved she hadn’t asked about Dad, but didn’t quite understand what she meant. She was looking at me expectantly, her head cocked to one side. She had this very vivid face, all scrunched up and eager, with bright eyes that sparkled wickedly.

  “You said you wanted to concentrate on being you?”

  “Oh! Yes.” I was embarrassed. Of all the pathetic things to say! It had just slipped out, probably as a result of nerves. Shamefaced, I said, “It’s just sometimes I can’t quite decide who I really am?”

  If that made any sense, which it almost certainly didn’t. This was not a good start! I’d only been at the school for about three hours and already I’d made a complete idiot of myself.

  “What I mean,” I said lamely, “is it’s like I’m one person in my head and another person when I’m, like, with people, sort of thing.”

  Like that made it any better. Probab
ly just made me sound like a total lunatic. But Millie was nodding enthusiastically.

  “Same here! It’s like sometimes when you hear yourself talking and you think, is this really me saying all that stuff? Or is this other one really me? This one that’s sitting back listening? And then you think, who is the real me? Who is the real anybody? How are you supposed to know?”

  I thought that some people seemed to know OK. I couldn’t imagine any of my family stopping to ask themselves who they were.

  “Sometimes,” I said, “I can’t make up my mind whether I’m just Peachy or whether there’s something more.”

  Millie skipped out of the way as two huge Year 10s went lumbering past.

  “Why just Peachy?” she said.

  I’ve always been Just Peachy. Almost ever since I can remember.

  “It’s what my family call me,” I said. “Well, it’s not what they actually call me. It’s not like a nickname or anything. It’s more what they say, like, ‘Oh, it’s just Peachy.’ Like there was this one time, when I was little, we’d gone to visit my gran…” Big Gran, it was. “I was clambering round the room on the furniture and I went and fell off and clonked my head and started howling, and Gran came rushing in wanting to know what had happened, and Mum said, ‘It’s all right, you don’t have to worry, it’s just Peachy.’”

  “What did she say that for?” said Millie. “It seems a bit mean.”

  “I suppose – ” I wanted to be fair to Mum, even though it was Gran who had picked me up and cuddled me – “I suppose cos I was the sort of child that was always doing that sort of thing.”

  “Even so,” said Millie. And then she screwed up her face and said, “Families!”

  I wondered what hers was like, with all those annoying little sisters. The twins were a bit annoying, always showing off and doing their special twin thing, like finishing each other’s sentences or collapsing into secretive peals of laughter. They would giggle away for minutes on end, without anyone ever knowing why.

  “Know what?” said Millie. “I was having this huge big argument with my dad the other day and he was getting really mad. I could see him getting all bright red. And in the end he said, ‘You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You are a mere child.’”

  “Like that means you’re not entitled to have opinions?” I said.

  “I guess not,” said Millie. “Not according to my dad.”

  “Honestly,” I said. “Families!”

  The second bell was ringing as we reached the science lab. We had been dawdling rather; all the others had raced ahead. Guiltily we made our way down to the front, to the last two empty places. Miss Jackman stood watching us, starched and crackly in her white coat.

  “Just get a move on, you two! You should have been here five minutes ago.”

  You two. I liked that! I think Millie did too, cos she gave another of her impish grins as we slid on to our stools. Seconds later, she pushed a scribbled note along the bench:

  “Hi, Just Peachy! This is your friend Merely Millie. LOL!”

  I think that was the moment when I began to feel that maybe Sacred Heart would not be so bad. When Gran asked me if I had made any friends yet, I was able to tell her very proudly that I had.

  “Excellent,” said Gran. “I’m sure that must be a great relief to your mum. I know she was a bit worried.”

  Mum has this belief that I am shy. But I really am not! So long as I can just be me. The reason I’d found it so difficult to make friends at primary school was because of everyone always expecting me to be someone else. All the really cool kids lost interest once they discovered I wasn’t like Charlie. And all the others were too busy trying to get into the smart set to bother with a non-entity who’d been dismissed as boring. That only left a few nerdy ones, which made me think I must be pretty nerdy myself, only how can you tell? I wasn’t nerdy like Ginetta Derby, who used to keep whining at me to get autographs for her. It was all she was interested in: autographs.

  “Your dad must know hundreds of stars! He must meet them all the time. Please, Peachy… I really need him to get some for me!”

  And then there was Emily Ashton, who trailed round with me at break time and did nothing but moan.

  “Everyone is so mean! They are all so mean. I really hate them!”

  And poor Jennifer Baxter, who couldn’t help being nerdy cos her nose kept dripping and whenever you sat next to her all you could hear was the sound of snuffling and sniffing. It absolutely wasn’t her fault and I felt really sorry for her and tried very hard not to mind. It wasn’t actually the sniffing that bothered me so much as the fact that she was a bit limp and dim, though I expect that was something else she couldn’t help.

  In the end we all became friends, sort of. We used to hang out together, the other three nerds and me. Ginetta, whining for autographs, Emily hating everyone, Jennifer sniffing, and me wishing I could be someone else. Someone who didn’t have a dad that was a minor celeb and brothers and sisters that were so talented and so popular.

  And now, at last, I was! That is, I could pretend that I was, and no one would know any different. As far as Millie was concerned I was just me. If she called me Just Peachy, which she sometimes did, it was done as a joke. Just Peachy and Merely Millie!

  Gran wanted to know if I was in a group.

  I said, “Group?”

  “Yes,” said Gran, “we used to go round in groups. Well, we called them gangs in those days, but I don’t suppose you’re allowed to do that now. What with the riots and everything.”

  Sometimes I find it difficult to follow Gran’s train of thought.

  “All the violence,” said Gran. “Drugs. Guns. Knives.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I don’t think we have any of that.”

  “I should hope not!” said Gran. “Not at Sacred Heart. I just wondered if you were part of a group, or—”

  “No,” I said. “It’s just me and this other girl.”

  “Your own special friend! Your mum must be so pleased.”

  Mum didn’t even know. She’d asked me once or twice, rather vaguely, if I was getting on all right, and I’d said that I was, but I hadn’t yet got around to telling her about Millie. I was going to have to soon, cos Millie had suggested only the other day that maybe I could go round to her place one weekend for a sleepover.

  “It’d be fun,” she said, “wouldn’t it?”

  I’d agreed that it would. I’d never been to a sleepover before. Me and the nerds hadn’t done things like that. There was only one big problem, and that was how I was going to explain to Millie that I couldn’t invite her back. Because I couldn’t! I really couldn’t. I so didn’t want her discovering about my family.

  “Peaches?” said Gran.

  “Yes,” I said. “Sorry!”

  “Would you like to put your mum back on the phone?”

  I went into the hall and yelled up the stairs, “Mu-u-um! D’you want to speak to Gran again?”

  “Love to!” cried Mum. “Oops, watch out!”

  I stood stolidly at the foot of the stairs as Mum laughingly slid down the banister. It is not really what you expect from someone of her age, but she likes to show that she can still do it. She can do handstands too, and almost the splits. I suppose it is a good thing.

  “Well, you had a nice long chat,” she said, landing cat-like at my feet.

  I said, “Yes,” and handed her the phone. Nobly I resisted the temptation to park myself by the door and listen, though I knew that they would talk about me. Gran would say how good it was that I had made a friend, and Mum would go, “Really? She hasn’t said anything to me! Why is that girl so secretive?”

  And then when she got off the phone she would ask me. She would want know when I was going to invite Millie over. Mum is hugely sociable. She is always urging us to bring our friends back.

  “You must ask her to come for tea!”

  What excuse could I possibly make?

  As it happened, Mum didn’t ask m
e about Millie cos while she was still talking to Gran there was a loud shriek and Charlie came belting down the stairs in one of her panics.

  “Mum, Mum, I’ve lost my new top! I can’t find it anywhere, I’ve looked all over! Mum, you’ve got to help me, I really need it, I’m going out in five minutes!”

  Mum jumped to attention like she always does. She said goodbye to Gran – “Got to go, sudden crisis!” – and went racing off to search for the missing top. (Which was probably just where it was supposed to be: Charlie never bothers to look properly.) While she was upstairs, the twins had a crisis of their own. I could hear them yelling “Mu-u-u-m!” at the tops of their voices. It sounded like they were up in the attics. I heard Mum call, “All right, I’m coming!” And then the sound of her feet pounding up the attic stairs. No sooner had she got the twins sorted than Dad came roaring in, bellowing like some large jungle creature.

  “Cretinous load of pillocks!”

  Someone had obviously upset him. People are always upsetting Dad. According to him, the world is full of morons. Mum had to pour him a drink and calm him down, and by that time she’d obviously forgotten about me having a new friend and how lovely it was. At any rate, she didn’t return to the subject. But next morning at school Millie mentioned again about us having a sleepover.

  “Could you come this Friday? It would be so fun!”

  I promised that I would ask Mum that same evening.

  “Oh, do,” begged Millie. “Please!”

  “I will,” I said. “I will!”

  It’s next to impossible, in our house, pinning Mum down for more than a couple of seconds. You have to make a real effort. I knew it wasn’t any good trying to do it while the others were around, so I waited till she went upstairs and managed to corner her as she came out of the bathroom. She said, “For goodness sake, Peachy, what are you lurking there for? I nearly tripped over you!”